24.3 Europe: a.d. 901 to 1000  (Page 4/7)

NOTE: 38: The Holy Roman Empire And The Norman Kingdom in South Italy

Map taken from Reference 97.

Western europe

At the beginning of this 1 0th century the map of western Europe, in part as a result of Viking raids, was a mosaic of intricate, interlacing counties, communities, principalities and lordships, all part of the feudal system. By the second half of the century the Viking raids had diminished and western Europe recovered rapidly. The heavy mold-board plow came into general use and made a great increase in agriculture possible, as drainage was obtained. Four oxen and long fields were required for this type of plow. While the mer- chants of the other civilization of Eurasia were primarily caterers to the tastes of their social superiors and were accustomed to regulation and taxation from above in the "command" system, which we mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the aggressive, ruthless and self-reliant ethos of western European merchants was profoundly different. The distinctive characteristics of subsequent western history arise largely from this fact. (Ref. 8 , 139 )

Spain and portugal

Garcia, king of Leon, began an expansion eastward, building numerous castles in the area later to be known as Castile. The chiefly Berber armies of the Spanish Omayyad Caliphate periodically devastated the Christian kingdoms of both Leon and Navarre (Basque territory) but the Christian kings paid tribute and thus survived to eventually return the honors and attack the south. When this did occur, one reason was that sheep, which were vital to the economy of northern Spain, had to be taken south to winter pasture in the region held by the Arabs. Famines occurred in 915 and 929, probably due to the disease "rust" on wheat. (Ref. 137 , 211 )

In the Moslem area of the south the great city of Cordoba had 700 mosques, 3 public baths, a palace with 400 halls and rooms and a library with 400,000 books, as we have previously noted. This famed library continued to draw poets and scholars from all over the Moslem Empire. Abul Kasim, of Cordoba, wrote the first illustrated book of surgery, named Al-Tasrif, which included descriptions of lithotomy, tracheotomy and thyroidectomy, among other procedures. Eastern Islam carried sugar cane to Spain and to Madeira and the Canaries, where later it became an important industry.

The Jews of Cordoba lavished much money to draw men of Jewish law and letters to the city in an attempt to establish a Jewish rebirth politically and culturally. The most famous Jew of this era was the physician and politician, Hasdai ibn Shaprut, famed as a healer who translated medical works of the Greeks into Arabic, but he was also secretary and ambassador to Caliph Abd-er Rahman III (912-961), greatest of the Moslem rulers in Spain. He was the son of a Frankish concubine and a grandson of a Basque princess. Hakam II, caliph from 961 to 976, was overthrown by a bureaucrat first minister, Al Mansur, who became a dictator. After his death, the caliph deteriorated. (Ref. 2 , 49 , 196 )